Core housing need and gender

Breaking down core housing need in Canada

Core housing need highlights the challenges many Canadians face in finding safe, suitable and affordable housing. Core housing need occurs when a household falls short of one or more housing standards — adequacy, suitability or affordability — and would need to spend 30% or more of its before-tax income to access housing that meets all 3 standards. Core housing need rates are often provided at the household level as the impact is felt by all individuals living in the household.

According to the Canadian Housing Survey, approximately 1.7 million households (11.2%) were assessed to be in core housing need in 2022. This translates to approximately 3.3 million individuals (9.1%).

This article looks primarily at individual characteristics, such as gender, race and age. In it, we mainly use the percentage of individuals, rather than the percentage of households living in core housing need. However, when looking at family composition, we use household rates to get a better understanding of the differences in core housing need between households composed of one-parent families and those composed of a couple (with and without children).

Using a Gender Based Analysis Plus (GBA Plus) lens, we explored the variation in core housing need rates among Canadians by gender and its overlap with race, income, age and family composition. When examining core housing need, a GBA Plus approach was used to analyze intersecting, identifying factors that can impact people's housing experiences. This approach allows us to deepen our understanding of underlying factors that can play a role in shaping diverse people's housing experiences to support more responsive and inclusive policies and programs.

Women face greater rates of core housing need

Overall, women faced greater rates of core housing need in comparison to men. In 2022, the core housing need rate for women was 9.8% while the rate for men was 8.4%. The disparity was greatest among renters. Women who rent faced greater core housing need rates than men who rent (21.3% and 18.2%, respectively).

Source: CMHC, adapted from the Canadian Housing Survey, 2022 (Statistics Canada)

Age, gender and core housing need

The 2022 Survey showed that men aged 15 to 24 were more likely to be in core housing need than women in the same age category. From age 25 onward, women experienced higher rates of core housing need. This situation is due in part to the gender wage gap. According to Statistics Canada, the gender wage gap in 2022 was 16.0%. This means that women earned 84 cents for every dollar earned by men aged 15 and over.

The most notable gap was between senior men and women. This gap begins to widen more noticeably between the age categories of 45 to 54 and 55 to 64. The difference in core housing need rates between the ages of 45 to 54 between men and women isn't huge (6.9% and 7.5%, respectively). The rates of core housing need along with a widening gap jump quite a bit in the next age category of 55 to 64 (9.1% and 10.4%, respectively). The gap continues to widen as Canadians age.

The core housing need rates for men and women between the ages of 65 and 74 were 8.0% and 12.0%, respectively. These rates were relatively higher for women who are 75 and older (14.6%) and only slightly higher for men in the same age group (8.7%). Several factors contribute to this, including:

• senior women having lower savings due to the gender wage gap, smaller pensions and retirement income compared to men
• the impacts of divorce or death of a spouse, resulting in having to rely on a single source of income

Racialized women and core housing need

Racialized women¹ were among the most likely to experience core housing need. In 2022, racialized people faced higher rates of core housing need than non-racialized people (14.4% and 7.7%, respectively, see Table 2). In 2018, 2021 and 2022, racialized women were twice as likely to experience core housing need, compared to non-racialized women.

In 2018, 18.8% of racialized women were in core housing need compared to 7.6% of non-racialized women (see Table 2). This gap slightly decreased in 2022, when 16.8% of racialized women and 8.5% of non-racialized women were in core housing need (see Table 2). The gap between racialized and non-racialized women in core housing need is consistent with other findings that show higher rates of poverty among racialized women and girls than non-racialized women and girls (Statistics Canada, 2024).

This gap also exists between racialized and non-racialized men. In 2018, 13.4% of racialized men were in core housing need, compared to 6.2% of non-racialized men. Although racialized men have faced higher rates of core housing need, this gap slightly decreased in 2022. That year, 12.1% of racialized men were in core housing need versus 7.0% of non-racialized men.

Source: CMHC, adapted from the Canadian Housing Survey, 2018 – 2022 (Statistics Canada)

One-parent family households and core housing need

Households with one-parent families tend to experience higher rates of core housing need than households with families headed by a couple (see Table 3). This is often attributable to several factors, including a reliance on a single earner to support at least one child, housing costs being the sole responsibility of the single earner, and the need for paid childcare to be able to participate in the workforce.

Table 3 shows a lower core housing need rate for households composed of couples with and without children than for households with one-parent families.³ In 2022, households with families composed of couples with children had a core housing need rate of 6.0%. This rate was lower for households made up of couples without children (5.0%). However, core housing need rates were significantly higher for households with one-parent families and households not living in a census family⁴ (19.4% and 19.3%, respectively). The survey shows that households with one-parent families headed by women tend to have higher rates of core housing need than those headed by men (21.0% versus 15.5%, respectively). A recent study released by Statistics Canada illustrates wage disparities between men and women, and especially for one-parent families headed by women.

In 2022, households not in census families also experienced higher rates of core housing need (19.3%) than households composed of couples with or without children. Women in households not in census families experienced a higher rate than men (21.7% and 16.7%, respectively). This is especially true for those living alone (one-person households not in a census family) who recorded a core housing need rate of 20.6%. Again, the survey shows a gap in core housing need rates between women and men living alone (23.3% and 17.5%, respectively). The reliance on a single income to keep up with the cost of living places people at higher risk of core housing need.

Source: CMHC, adapted from the Canadian Housing Survey, 2022 (Statistics Canada)

Lower-income women and core housing need

Generally, those in lower income brackets faced higher rates of core housing need than those in higher income brackets. In 2022, rates of core housing need were higher for women in comparison to men in all income categories except for those earning under $20,000 per year. These findings suggest that lower-income men experienced higher rates of core housing need than lower-income women. However, this does not take into consideration household size, family composition, living situation and age, which may explain these differences. Future research should take a closer look at the characteristics of those in lower-income categories.

Housing policy and program implications

It is important to understand who is most impacted by core housing need so that policies and programs are tailored to the needs of specific populations. Based on survey results from the 2022 Canadian Housing Survey:

• women experienced higher rates of core housing need than men
• women who are 75 and over had the highest rates of core housing need of any other age group
• racialized women were more likely to be in core housing need than non-racialized women
• one-parent families, especially those led by women, continued to face high rates of core housing need
• women living alone recorded higher rates than men living alone
• future research on differences in core housing need rates across various characteristics in lower-income categories is needed

These findings indicate that programs need to effectively target the housing needs of women with different living arrangements, household sizes, ages, races and incomes. The use of a GBA Plus approach of identifying overlapping factors, such as gender, allows us to better understand the characteristics of those most likely to be in core housing need. Future analyses of the Survey should continue to use a GBA Plus lens to unpack the diverse housing experiences of Canadians.

About the Canadian Housing Survey

The Canadian Housing Survey is a biennial survey conducted in partnership with Statistics Canada that examines the housing experiences of Canadians. It began in 2018 as part of the National Housing Strategy's commitment to new, more and better housing information to support better housing outcomes for all Canadians.

The survey collects information from Canadian households on their homes, communities, housing needs and housing experiences. Three cycles of survey data are currently available, with the recent cycle presenting the most up-to-date data on the housing experiences of Canadians. Read about some of the key issues that impacted Canadians in 2022. Take a closer look at core housing need rates among different population groups with a specific focus on gender.⁵

This survey is a unique source of information on many topics and provides estimates of core housing need between census cycles, which helps identify trends and emerging patterns on a timelier basis. The third cycle (2022) of the survey continues to provide researchers, policy makers, housing sector professionals and the public with relevant data for housing decisions.